The Department of Geography will host a geography-themed hackathon event on April 28-29th in Denny Hall, room 303. The event, MapHacks, will bring UW students from all disciplines and departments together to apply their backgrounds in Web mapping and GIS using a wide variety of platforms, including MapBox, Carto, Tableau, QGIS, and PostgreSQL/PostGIS.
MapHacks will be held over the course of the weekend. On the first day, participants will form teams based on common interests within the overall theme of urban development issues. Projects will include topics such as LINK expansion, building construction, accessibility and safety, affordability, growth management, homelessness, traffic congestion, cycling routes, bike and car share programs. The outcome of each team’s project will be some form of visualization that incorporates concepts such as location, distance, space, spatial patterns, scale, or nature/society relations.
Most of the first day will be spent developing and carrying out projects, as well as tech talks by representatives from industry sponsors, which include Spatial Dev, a local GIS firm founded by a UW Geography alum. The second day will be devoted to the presentation of group projects, judging, and awarding prizes.
The event is being organized by geography majors Utako Kase and Ariel Kadouri along with Brent Gruenke, major in Human-Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) with help and guidance from Geography professor Luke Bergmann. MapHacks is co-sponsored by the Departments of Geography and HCDE, along with industry partners.
Registration is free, first come, first served, and is limited to 80 students. Click here to visit the event page and register.